I restarted the project with the forward bearing and the base of the governor tower. Dry fitting some of the repaired castings shows that the fit isn’t great. The gear housing isn’t flat. Some shims and gaskets should make it okay. Luckily it isn’t critical to have a perfect fit. The bearing cover seems to be satisfactorily repaired although it looks a little rough. The repairs were done via brazing. I believe there may be a better process. Two of the four bolts are bent but not bad enough that I would need to replace them. The taper pins seem to line up pretty well. I disassembled the bearing to give it another thorough cleaning. I’m amazed how good of shape the bearing itself is in. Before bearing reassembly I need to make gaskets. Might be the first part I actually put back together.
Related to that, I found another cracked part. I had not yet removed the tower base because I first thought the flywheel hub would have to be removed first but that proved to not be the case. The trap under the lower governor tower bearing was filled with oil/water mix. It obviously had filled with water, froze and split. I’ve taken the part to a new shop for repair. I’m more optimistic on the outcome this time. More on that in the future.
The fuel bowl was repaired after suffering from the same water/freeze/split problem. The repair messed up the top threads. I’ll need to figure out a way to clean up the threads so the cover/filter can screw in.
In the win column, James gave my dad 3 unused head gaskets he found in his garage along with a Kahlenberg air gauge! I was going to try and salvage my existing gaskets. Two are in okay condition but the third isn’t great. Now I have new ones! THANK YOU, JAMES!!!
I’m still on the fence about pulling the pistons and cylinders. Everything looks good from what I can tell so far. I’ll check some more clearances and lash then make a decision.
I need to do a lot more cleaning and scraping. It’s getting to the point where things will be going back together soon. I also need to match the factory paint. I’ve looked at a lot of restorations and there is a broad variety of paint schemes. My preference is to paint it the way the factory would do it. There is obvious evidence of two layers of paint using the same color. I assume the second layer was done during the factory rebuild. Others have used some contrasting colors to make the engine look better. Not sure what I’ll do.